Kamen Rider DCD #7 (SPOILERS)

[SPOILER (spoilr) n.

1. One who seizes spoils or booty.

2. Something that causes spoilage.

3. The contents of this post.]

First off, is it just me or has Gackt’s opening theme beefed up from its previous incarnation? From episode #6 onward it seems a bit more guitar driven in the chorus.

This episode was a bit slower in pace than previous episodes, which comes as something of a surprise to me considering how many Riders are present in Ryuki and how many fights there are. The actual cast of Ryuki – or at least Shinji and Ren – reveal some interesting dynamics in terms of this world’s variance but, for the most part, it is Yuusuke and new ‘Ryuki World’ character, Kamen Rider Abyss who drive forward the story.

The final fight between Abyss and DCD and Ryuki is something of a disappointment, Ryuki’s Final Form Ride being far too much like the pet dragon he summons in the series for it to really make any kind of impact. Fair enough, it’s important to keep the style of the original in the manifestations of these forms, but this one made it seem a bit like they were stuck for ideas.

Abyss, who looks startling like The Rock Musical BLEACH‘s Tsuchiya Yuichi (sans Ichimaru Gin wig) is the real star though and, through a series of manipulations and unexpected twists reveals himself to be the arc’s villain, which we were aware of, but more importantly, also reveals that he is a not a native of ‘Ryuki’s World’. It’s kind of interesting that, whilst this is obviously true of the source material, it should come as such a big surprise within the narrative.

"fox-face"

Despite abstaining from spoilers myself, I gather he has some connection to the next arc/world based around Kamen Rider Blade but, having never seen an episode of that series, I can’t really comment.

And that about sums it up really. In many ways, this episode is a set up the following arc, I’m guessing, but I really feel I should again reiterate how Yuusuke drives this story forward. It’s through his sense of justice, even when the odds are against him (and poor Natsumi!), that Decade manages to resolve the situation that Abyss has engineered. There’s a nice comparison between Shinji and Ren as a team and Tsukasa and Yuusuke that really works and goes a long way to rehabilitating Kamen Rider Ryuki not as a Rider show but at least as a tokusatsu show, in my eyes at least – you can’t really ask for more than that, I feel.

"this picture will be the icon of a thousand LJ users by this time tomorrow"

Meanwhile in Super Hero Retsuden…

"YOU! I wanna take you to a gay bar!"

Kamen Rider DCD #6 (SPOILERS)

[SPOILERS blah-blah-blah watching it raw blah-blah-blah still no good at Japanese blah-blah-blah]

I will admit that I was dreading this episode. I’m not a fan of Ryuki, in fact out of all the Heisei Rider shows, Ryuki has always been my least favourite. The straw that broke the camel’s back was probably the godawful Ryuki vs. Agito special but the main complaint is that, for all the armoured characters that appear in Ryuki, there don’t actually appear to be any Kamen Riders. It is thus something of a surprise when DCD episode #6 throws around the term ‘Kamen Rider’ every other word, especially as the aforementioned previous crossover was the only episode to use the term on screen in relation to Ryuki (IIRC).

"If you can do the Bart, you're bad like Michael Jackson."

Some of that bad atmosphere carries over from the source material, with a lot of the ‘Kamen Riders’ being characters that it is not only difficult to like, but difficult to care about. Fortunately here, the multiple Riders of the lower tier are used as fodder in much the same way that sentai throws about  returning monsters. A fitting fate for such characters, IMHO, and one that saves us the ‘secondary Rider from another world’ fight/subplot (albeit by supplementing a ‘secondary Rider from the source material world’ fight/subplot).

This bad atmosphere was so well done that it took me at least five minutes of searching through links before I discovered that Kamen Rider Abyss is a unique ‘Ryuki‘s World’ character only appearing in DCD. I was fooled.

Haguro Ren/Kamen Rider Knight however is a part of the original series and, as such, still comes across as an arse. I was surprised though that Tatsumi Shinji, despite looking a bit like a cross between Isaka Tatsuya and Michael Jackson, is a far more sympathetic character than Kido Shinji. Even though I still hate the Ryuki suit, I feel that I could come to like Tatsumi as a character.

Other than that, highlights of the episode were the continuing friendship between Tsukasa and Yuusuke and DCD handing it to below average villains. It’s satisfying to see a character that I do like beating down characters that I don’t. This is the true joy of crossovers, I feel – they’re like an evolved form of the playground ‘my dad’s better than your dad’ argument.

The only disappointment is that Yuusuke didn’t get his hands dirty as Kuuga. With a Kuuga vs. lower tier Ryuki Riders fight, this episode would have been a high point for me, a near miracle when you consider my distaste for the source material.

So, all in all, a damn good episode. Much, much better than I expected.

Next episode looks like it could be just as exciting…now if only Natsumi would stop wearing those depressing prison clothes and get back to the cute outfits!

Kamen Rider DCD #3 Review (SPOILERS)

Once again, apologies for those of you only watching the subbed releases of this show. Please look away now if you wish to avoid SPOILERS.

Episode #3 concludes the ‘Kuuga’s World’ arc in an admirably dramatic fashion. At the episode’s opening we witness the somewhat ill-placed fight against Kamen Rider Kabuto‘s Punch Hopper and Kick Hopper, who turned up at the whim of evil!canvas hat!man and disappeared behind a wall overlaid by what looked to be demonic versions of Kabuto or Ryuki characters.

"Brotherly Love"

I could be wrong with that but the Ryuki were so far out of left-field that every time some shadowy version of a character turns up like this I assume it’s related to them.

The alternative of course is that they are entirely new evil Rider characters…or that maybe Ichigo is travelling forward from 1971 in order to take down DCD whilst projecting really weird shadows on the walls of the Fifth Dimension as he moves closer towards 2009.

Yeah, that’s right, *I* can write fanfic too.

Anyhow, judging from the glimpse of Kaixa in the preview for episode #4, I’m assuming that the secondary Riders from each series will be turning up in this sort of fashion a lot more as the series progresses. It’s not the best fate for some of these characters but, again, it should stop the show from getting bogged down too much by the myriad characters of Ryuki.

After the padding of this fight sequence, the storyline really begins to pick up with the unleashing of some ultimate Grongi who seemed markedly different from the original series’ N-Daguba-Zeba and, in fact, appeared to be more like Boukenger‘s pre-Quester Gai and Rei (I really wouldn’t be surprised if his suit was hashed together from these earlier characters). There are similarities in the design, although not enough for me to completely say that this *is* Daguba. Perhaps Kuuga fans can however correct my suspicious mind and identify this character.

Unidentified Life Form #X?

This new Grongi unleashes the ultimate darkness upon the world, raising hordes of Grongi footsoldiers and transforming humans into Grongi themselves. Along the way, we also learn that Onodera Yuusuke’s origins differ again from Godai’s in that evil!canvas hat!man appears to have given him a prior warning about DCD.

After which, the episode hits a high note, showing all the chaos usually reserved only for the last few episodes of a Rider series and presenting a brilliant fight sequence as Kuuga and DCD at last join forces to save the world.

I can’t stress how powerful some of the scenes in this episode are and, at several points, I found the show genuinely surprising me with the bold way in which it made such changes to the established status quo of the previous episode. The deaths of both Suwa Taro’s character and Detective Yashiro were genuinely surprising and saddening.

Other surprises include Kuuga’s new transformed mode. Yes, you read that right. Kuuga transforms…into a giant Insecticon-like beetle stead for DCD during the final battle…and surprisingly it works. It’s all CGI gloss but the mass of zombie-like-Grongi suit actors and the sight of Kuuga sprinting down the side of a building to execute a Rider Kick from above is well worth the price of admission.

Tsukasa also really comes into his own during this fight, proving that he’s not just another arsehole with a henshin device but is really up to the task of confronting such monstrous injustice as the Grongi represent.

I can’t remember the last time I had so many good things to say about an episode of a Heisei Rider series.

…

Oh yes I can. It was Hibiki.

The next episode looks to be set in ‘Kiva’s World’ with some, ah, interesting changes.

Regardless of which, DCD has earnt its pocket money this month. The only thing missing from this episode was a kaizo ningen, everything else was perfect.

akihabara@DEEP #5 Sightings!

Matsuda Satoshi (Keitai Sosakan 7, Gokusen 3, HOTMAN 2, and apparently, Kamen Rider Ryuki).

Hiraiwa Kami (Kisarazu Cat’s Eye, and apparently, Kamen Rider Agito).